Continuing to go through Read the Institutes in a Year, today’s reading was interesting as it relates to both the argument over imputed righteousness and the question of what Christ did at the cross.

Emergents seem to increasingly favor the idea that what Jesus did in his life and at the cross was little more than set an example for us to follow. He was living righteously simply to show us how to live righteously. His death did little more than show us just how much he meant what he had said. It all sets an example for us, it doesn’t actually cause anything to happen in us.

Here is what Calvin says in 2.1.6:

We must surely hold that Adam was not only the progenitor but, as it were, the root of human nature; and that therefore in his corruption mankind deserved to be vitiated. This the apostle makes clear from a comparison of Adam with Christ. “As through one man sin came into the world and through sin death, which spread among all men when all sinned” [Rom. 5:12], thus through Christ’s grace righteousness and life are restored to us [Rom. 5:17]. What nonsense will the Pelagians chatter here? That Adam’s sin was propagated by imitation? Then does Christ’s righteousness benefit us only as an example set before us to imitate? Who can bear such sacrilege!

To answer your question, Calvin, many people in the church today can bear it.